


for you

by starlight_sugar



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Canon, Retrospective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-31 16:15:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8585263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlight_sugar/pseuds/starlight_sugar
Summary: Maggie breaks up with Jim on a Thursday night.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I don't normally intentionally publish things that aren't finished, but this is an exception. I watched all of this show in June of 2015 and immediately started this fic, expecting to be done that summer. I haven't made significant progress in over a year, but this is still one of my favorite things I've ever written, and I want it up _somewhere._ I'd say this fic is about 75% finished, and the other 25% is described in indented sections within the fic. It's a little messy, but I still hope you enjoy the 75% that you can read.

**FRIDAY**

Maggie breaks up with Jim on a Thursday night. She’s gentle about it, she does it in person, she promises that they can still be friends even though she’s moving permanently to DC, and all of her things are out of his apartment before the sun comes up.

Neal arrives at Jim’s apartment at nine o’clock the next morning with a bottle of whiskey. It’s not the best idea, but Jim needs something to get him through this, and Neal’s willing to let either himself or his alcohol be that thing. (And it doesn’t matter that he’s been saving this particular bottle for months, waiting for something good at work or a birthday or any excuse for a celebration. Jim needs it more than he ever would.)

Two hours later, Jim looks at Neal and frowns. “You should go to work,” he says - or slurs, really, and it sounds more like a question than an order.

Neal gives him his best “oh, really” look. “Will you be coming with me?”

“Maybe?” Jim tries. He looks pretty pathetic, sprawled across the couch, one arm thrown over his head and an empty glass in his other hand. His feet are resting in Neal’s lap. Neal has the strangest urge to rub them.

“Nice try, but the answer is absolutely not. Mac will do the show tonight.”

“But-”

“Jim, how much have you had to drink?”

Jim pauses, eyes glazing over. Neal can see his fingers twitching, like he’s trying not to count all the glasses he’s had. “Uh.”

“That’s what I thought.” Neal pulls his phone out. “Have you told Mac about what happened yet?”

“No, but Maggie might’ve.” Jim makes a face as he says her name, one part bitterness and two parts heartbreak. “Don’t call Mac.”

“I need to call someone, would you rather I called Will?”

“God, no, never mind, call Mac.”

Neal pats Jim on the knee. “Stay put, I’ll be right back.”

Jim groans. “Why are you leaving me?”

“Did you want me to have this conversation in front of you?”

Neal has never seen Jim too drunk to think until now. It takes a full minute for him to reach a decision, which is: “I dunno.”

“Christ,” Neal mutters. “I’ll be back in two minutes, Jim. Don’t move. Try and go to sleep.”

“It’s not even noon yet.”

“But it’s five o’clock somewhere, right?” Neal carefully shifts Jim’s feet off his lap and stands up. “Two minutes. Count the seconds if you’d like.”

He goes to Jim’s bedroom for the call, because it’s close and he’ll be able to hear Jim if he tries to get up. Neal perches gingerly on the bed and hits the call button.

Mac picks up on the first ring. “Where the  _ hell _ are you?”

“Jim’s place. We’re fine, don’t call the cops-”

“Did all of the phones in the building break at once? Because if they didn’t, then I can’t imagine why one of you didn’t call me to explain why I’m missing an EP and a journalist.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry.”

“If you know, then why didn’t you call?”

“Maggie broke up with Jim last night.”

There’s a long, long pause. Neal has to check to make sure the call didn’t drop. “Mac?”

“She couldn’t have done it tonight instead?” Mac mutters, and Neal hears, “Is he okay?”

“Jim’s drunk,” he explains. “I’m here making sure he drinks water and eats lunch and doesn’t drown in a pool of his own vomit.

“How considerate,” Mac says. It’d be sarcastic if he didn’t know she was worried. “I’m guessing that you’re calling in sick for Jim, then?”

Neal chews his lip. In a perfect world, he’d be calling in sick for himself too, but he can’t take two of Mac’s senior staff members away on the same day. “Well, he can’t do it for himself.”

“How drunk is he, anyways?”

“He had about a third of a bottle of whiskey.”

“This early in the morning?” Neal can imagine Mac pinching the bridge of her nose, or maybe leaning onto her desk, working out a solution. “Okay. I’ll do the show tonight, or Don will. And Jim  _ will _ be back on Monday night, you make sure of that.”

“Of course.”

“So it’s settled.”

“Settled,” Neal echoes.

“And Neal-” Mac’s voice gets louder, like her phone is closer to her mouth, and her voice goes scarily cool. “You do not, I repeat, you do  _ not _ leave my favorite producer alone while he’s drunk off his arse. Are we clear?”

Neal tries not to let his relief leak into his voice. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Take care of him. I’ll see you on Monday.”

“Yeah, see you then.”

Neal makes his way back out to the living room and peers at Jim. He’s still sprawled out on the couch, but his breathing is sleep-steady, and the glass is set carefully on the ground. Neal gives himself a couple of seconds to watch Jim, to be happy that Jim is content even if his contentedness comes from sleep, before going to find a blanket.

Jim’s apartment is like Neal’s fourth home (after his own apartment, the ACN building, and select online forums) so he has no problems with fridge-raiding and cable-watching while Jim’s asleep. He uses spare pillows to set up a personal pillow nest on the floor and fiddles with his phone and, when that gets boring, Jim’s phone. He debates calling Maggie for a while.

It takes another handful of hours for Jim to wake up, groaning like someone who drank a third of whiskey.

“Afternoon, sunshine,” Neal says brightly. “Sleep well?”

Jim slurs out something that definitely has the words “fuck you” in it somewhere and groans again. “I’m never drinking again.”

“What a shame, there’s still whiskey left.”

“Why would you get me this drunk on a Friday morning?”

“Because I’m a good friend.” Neal grabs the aspirin from where it’s been waiting patiently next to him and holds it out. “Let me know if you’re going to throw up so I can get out of the way.”

“Yeah, a good friend,” Jim grumbles, but he takes the aspirin. “Wh’time is it?”

“It is-” Neal glances at the nearest phone. “Three-forty-eight. I’m afraid you have the stomach flu, everyone at work says feel better soon.”

“Is that my phone?”

“Yup.” Neal sets it back down. “We have a few choices for our afternoon today. We can have a long, drawn-out heart to heart, which I would not personally recommend, but it’s your choice. We can get ice cream and watch Netflix. Or we can keep drinking.”

“All those choices are terrible.”

“We can get pizza and watch Netflix.”

Jim makes a noise that sounds sort of like acquiescence, so Neal pats his shoulder and calls Domino’s.

They make their way through a third of the first season of White Collar and most of a large pizza. Jim is quiet other than laughing at a couple of jokes on the show, and Neal feels the silence between episodes with mindless chatter. (Every now and again Neal catches Jim looking at him with this odd soft smile, and he smiles back every time and doesn’t let himself dissect what it means.)

It’s long since dark outside when Jim says, “You know what the shittiest part of this is?”

Neal pauses the TV and looks at Jim expectantly.

“It’s that for the last three years I’ve been thinking of life in terms of Maggie-and-me, and now I’m back to just me.” Jim leans back, staring at the ceiling. “We were supposed to be a team, and now I’m alone again.”

Neal wants to say something like “You’re not alone” or “You still have me,” but he knows Jim doesn’t need platitudes right now. He needs a friend.

He drops a hand on the couch, not quite touching Jim’s leg, but close. “Do you want to keep watching?”

Jim laughs, humorless and exhausted. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”

Neal hits play again and wishes, quietly, that he knew enough about long-term relationships to be any comfort.

..

**27 JUNE 2013**

Venezuela was lovely in the spring, rainy and green, air heavy enough to cling to Neal’s skin. He had a basic knowledge of Spanish when he first arrived, but by the time he left he was almost fluent. It was a defense mechanism: the faster he adjusted to the culture and the language, the sooner he’d be able to blend in, and the harder it’d be for the FBI to track him down.

Venezuela was green and bright, it was vibrant, and it could never compare to New York. Venezuela was warm and it could never compare to how  _ glad _ he was to walk back into the ACN building. He would’ve gone to Charlie’s service - should’ve gone, really - but that would’ve drawn the attention to him and away from Charlie, and that wasn’t exactly the point of a funeral.

So he went to ACN, and he got his desk back, and he got to work. He wanted to pick up like he never left, or at least like he wasn’t gone for long. He could’ve gone home, back to his apartment that Will had managed to get back for him (and he’d never ask how, but he was grateful, god, was he grateful). But as far as he cared, he was at home in ACN. After all, his family was there.

Slowly, people trickled in after the service, all of them gasping and oohing and ahhing over Neal as they saw him. Gary gave him a box of chocolates, Jenna kissed both his cheeks, and every single person hugged him. He took it as well as he could; it wasn’t likely he’d ever be getting this treatment again. God, he hoped not. Being on the run was terrifying. His neck still hurt from all the time spent looking over his shoulder.

Jim was the last person back, storming into the office and muttering under his breath. Neal could hear him complaining as he got closer. And closer. And still didn’t look up from his phone.

“-foot traffic, people don’t think foot traffic is a thing,” he muttered, and Neal couldn’t hide his delighted smile. “God, I fucking hate pedestrians, all of them, there’s not a single good one in this entire city.” He made it to Neal’s desk and kept walking, and Neal leaned back in his seat. This was going to be golden. “Tell you what, they keep jaywalking, they deserve to get hit by-”

Jim stopped walking. Neal could feel every set of eyes in the room on them as Jim slowly, deliberately turned back towards Neal’s desk. His gaze locked onto Neal, but he didn’t say anything, just stared.

“For what it’s worth, I agree,” Neal said happily. He never thought he’d miss Jim’s road rage, but here they were, and he couldn’t have been happier to hear it. “Pedestrians are terrible, all of them.”

Jim gaped. “You son of a bitch.”

“Hello to you too.”

Jim lunged forward, feet away one second and pulling Neal out of his seat the next. Before Neal could make a sound or even register what had happened, Jim was crushing him in a hug.

“Oh,” Neal said, too softly, and his arms found their way around Jim’s waist.

“Never again,” Jim whispered, too loud in the quiet room, and everyone could probably hear, but Neal couldn’t find it in himself to care. “Never a-fucking-gain, do you hear me? You’re going to keep yourself away from committing felonies and getting arrested and whatever else you’re planning on doing.

“I wasn’t planning on committing a felony.”

“But you  _ did, _ you fucker.” Jim exhaled, a long, shaky breath, and Neal wondered how bad the last few months had been for him. “God, it’s so good to have you back.”

“It’s even better to be back,” Neal admitted, and Jim’s arms tightened around his shoulders, and Neal thought,  _ this is home. _

He tells himself later that he was thinking about ACN and New York, anything but Jim, but who the fuck is he kidding?

..

**MONDAY**

Jim flings himself into a chair next to Neal’s desk, doing his best I’m-not-pouting pout. Neal closes out of the half-dozen news windows he has open (he’s not going to get any work done while Jim’s like this) and turns to him. “You look happy to be back at work.”

Jim’s brow furrows. “What? It’s great being back, everyone keeps saying they’re glad I’m feeling better. You can tell I’m in a bad mood?”

Neal snorts. “You’re projecting pretty hard.”

“I’m not projecting.” Jim goes back to not-pouting. “You’re going to Don and Sloan’s engagement party, right?”

“Sloan would kill me if I didn’t.” Sloan had told Neal about the party before she and Don formally announced it. Neal’s not sure if he’s one of Sloan’s best friends or if she just pities him and his relatively isolated ways, but either way he wouldn’t miss the party for the world. He’s glad she finally worked up the courage to pop the question, anyways. At least, he assumes she proposed to Don. He can’t imagine the reverse. “Why, aren’t you going?”

“Well, yeah, I was going to, but I was talking to Gary about it.”

Neal raises his eyebrows. Jim sounds very meaningful there. “What did Gary say?”

“I said I was looking forward to the party, and he said he was surprised, because Maggie’s bringing a date to the party.” Jim must decide that professionalism is for people in other offices, because he wheels his chair to Neal’s desk and buries his head in his arms. He moans something unintelligible, but it sounds a bit like “fuck my life,” so Neal will assume that’s it.

He pats Jim’s head, trying very hard not to pet his hair. “I’m sorry.”

“Three days,” Jim says, muffled. “She broke up with me three days ago, and she already found someone to bring to the party.”

Neal squeezes his shoulder and lets his hand rest there. “Maybe it’s just customary to bring a date to an engagement party?”

“Were you going to?”

“Course not, who would I bring?” Kaylee’s in town, he could call her, but she wouldn’t come as a date, she’d come as his friend. Actually, now that he thinks about it: “Is Gary sure it’s a date and not just a friend?”

“Definitely a date. I think he even said she was dating someone.” Jim goes tense, and Neal snatches his hand back a quarter second before Jim sits bolt upright. “Oh my god, was she cheating on me?”

Neal’s so horrified that it takes him a full ten seconds of gaping to realize that Jim expects an answer. “No, no! She wouldn’t do that.”

“She kissed me while she was dating Don!”

“And then she went to break up with Don.” Neal leans in, resting his elbows on his knees, and some of the panic seeps out of Jim’s eyes. “She wouldn’t do that to you.”

Jim slumps over and re-buries his head in his arms. “I love her,” he says, but it doesn’t sound as sure as it used to. It just sounds sad.

“I know.” Neal rests his hand on Jim’s shoulder.

And he is. Regardless of his own feelings, regardless of how he saw the cracks forming before things broke down, he’s sorry. Jim is sad, and Neal can’t fix it, and really, that’s the worst of it. There’s nothing he can do. All that’s left is to sit with Jim and comfort him and be a friend. Neal’s good at being Jim’s friend.

..

**19 APRIL 2013**

“Espionage,” Jim said flatly, and Neal cringed. Jim’s face was unreadable, and since Neal could normally read him quicker than a picture book, he was thoroughly unsettled.

“It wasn’t intentional,” Neal tried hopefully. This didn’t have to be horrible, this was fixable, this had to be fixable. “There was no way to know-”

“You,” Jim said dangerously, and Neal’s jaw shut with a click. “Committed a felony. A really bad felony, not that any other ones would’ve been better. You committed espionage.”

“I don’t think that’s the technical charge,” Neal said weakly, even though he knew he shouldn’t.

“This isn’t about technicalities!” Jim’s arms flew out, and he looked for all the world like he was going to hit Neal or the wall or something. Neal wondered what he wanted to hit. “Christ, Neal, what the hell were you thinking? You should know better than this!”

Neal knew perfectly well that the best course was to let Jim tire himself out yelling, but he couldn’t let that stand, not from someone who made plenty of his own bad choices. “I was thinking that there’s a story, and one that matters at that. I was doing my job.”

Jim’s arms flailed even wider. “Our job doesn’t involve committing felonies! Our job involves telling people the truth!”

“This is the truth!”

“No, it’s conspiracy to commit goddamn espionage, and this time they won’t let you out of jail after an hour.” Jim ran his hands through his hair, fingers curled and clenched, and Neal felt something cold twist in his chest. The worst of it all was that Jim was right. He’d made a mistake, a bad one, and there would be consequences to face. Federal consequences. Definitely involving prison.

“I wasn’t trying,” he offered, but it sounded hollow. It sounded like he knew he was wrong.

Jim must’ve heard it because his face went from could-punch-things-furious to slightly-raging, which was probably as soft as he could be. “Yeah, I know,” he said, and Neal’s chest twisted tighter. “But we can’t just fix this. You know that, right? We can’t protect you from this.”

“I know,” Neal said, and pretended it wasn’t ripping him apart.

..

**TUESDAY**

“Neal,” Sloan says, completely unenthusiastically.

He decides not to let it faze him. “Sloan! Are you home?”

“Define home.”

Neal lifts his eyebrows, even though she can’t see him over the phone. “Your apartment?”

“Not Don’s?”

“No, not Don’s.”

“No, I’m at Don’s.”

Neal lets his head thud against the wall. “Shit.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I’m outside your apartment.”

There’s an expectedly long pause as Sloan processes this. “ _ Why, _ ” she says at last.

“I wanted to talk to you. Why are you at Don’s?”

“Because I live here, remember?”

Neal can honestly say that he did not remember. Judging by Sloan’s sigh, she already knows that. “What are you doing at my old apartment?”

“I was hoping for wine,” he admits.

“As much as I’d love to get you drunk and talk about boys, Don and I are having a night in.”

“Who said anything about talking about boys?””

Sloan sighs, long-suffering and sympathetic, and Neal suddenly feels like shit. “That’s the only reason you ever want to come over and get drunk.”

The worst part is that she’s completely right. Jim had spent a solid hour and a half IM’ing him about all the little things he kept realizing he and Maggie would never have (he’d sent a particularly distraught “we can never have a dog together,” and Neal didn’t have the heart to remind him that he was allergic) and it’d been grating on him all day. He’d thought that Sloan would give him wine and maybe pat his head and tell him he’d be okay, but he hadn’t stopped to ask if Sloan would want to do that for him.

“I’m a shit friend,” he says with feeling. “Next time I’ll bring the wine.”

Sloan hums. “You just aren’t used to having friends. It’ll pass.”

From the other end of the line, Neal hears Don say, “No friends? Is that Neal?” which is fantastic, really, just perfect.

Sloan shushes him, and Neal wonders what exactly their plans are. They probably don’t get nights in all that often with work. “If you need to talk, I can do it in the morning.”

“No,” Neal sighs, because he’s not enough of an asshole to rest his burdens on her all night. “It’s nothing. I’ll get wine by myself.”

“That’s even sadder,” Sloan tells him, and he can’t even admit that he agrees. “Are you going to be at the party?”

“Of course, what do you think I am, an animal?”

“No, I think you’re antisocial.”

Neal grins. “I’ll be there.”

“Good. If you’re getting wine, get a white.” Sloan hangs up, and Neal drops his head into a hand.

“White wine is disgusting,” he tells the empty phone line morosely. “I’m already alone on a Tuesday night, talking to myself and planning on getting drunk. I’m not getting white wine.”

His phone doesn’t answer, but he has two new texts from Jim. Neal really hates how quickly he opens them.

..

**18 SEPTEMBER 2011**

Jim’s face popped up on Neal’s screen, grainy and slightly pissed, and Neal tried not to smile too warmly at his laptop. “How’s the campaign trail?”

“How was  _ jail, _ ” Jim said, sounding righteously furious.

“It was only an hour and a half,” Neal began, but Jim’s eyes narrowed, and Neal decided that this call was more for Jim’s peace of mind than his own. He cleared his throat. “I mean, erm, it could’ve been worse?”

“They broke your phone.”

“They didn’t hurt me.”

“They didn’t have time to hurt you, they were busy breaking your fucking phone.” Jim glared into the screen. “What were you even doing?”

Neal sighed. “It was stupid, I went to cover a protest for this movement, and the police were there, and they-”

“And they broke your phone.”

Neal raised his eyebrows. “You seem awfully invested in the state of my phone. I can get a new one, you know.”

“The police shouldn’t be touching your personal property, let alone you.” Jim let out a noisy breath, and his shoulders lowered the slightest bit, and Neal understood. If he found out Jim got arrested on the campaign trail, he’d be pretty upset, too.

“I’m fine,” Neal said, as soothing as he could manage. “Will came and bailed me out. No harm, no foul, right?”

“No harm, yes foul,” Jim grumbled, but he looked slightly mollified. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

“Sure as I’ve ever been.” Neal grinned into the webcam. Jim, at last, smiled back, and Neal felt triumph swelling up inside him, along with something a little warmer that he didn’t care to put a name to. It didn’t matter, all that mattered was that Jim was smiling again, and everything was okay. “But really, how’s the campaign? Still bullshit?”

Jim settled back in his chair. “Well,” he said, the irritation already back in his voice, and Neal drummed his fingers against his thigh. This was going to be good.

..

**WEDNESDAY**

“Kaylee!” Jim says, sounding startled, and Neal snaps his head up to look at his desk. Sure enough, Kaylee is standing in front of Jim’s desk, looking as poised and electric as she did the last time she was in this newsroom. Jim looks dumbfounded, and Neal can see a few other coworkers gawking as well. “I didn’t know you and Neal were still in touch.”

“We’re not, often,” Kaylee says, giving Neal a bit of a smirk, and Neal is suddenly afraid. “After we broke up I moved to Pittsburgh for work, but I’m back in town for a couple weeks, so Neal suggested that we do coffee.”

That’s Neal’s cue, he thinks, so he picks up his bag and swings it over his shoulder. “I actually said lunch, but she thought coffee was more modern.”

“It’s much more modern.” Kaylee tugs at his arm until he’s close enough to pull in for a proper hug. “It’s good to see you,” she murmurs in his ear.

“And you,” Neal says emphatically. For all that he and Kaylee really don’t talk often, he’s always liked her. Even after they broke up, even five years after they met, even with all the miles between them, he’s always been glad that he met her. Out of all his exes, she is most definitely his favorite.

Jim clears his throat emphatically.

Neal raises his eyebrows over Kaylee’s shoulder. “Yes, James?”

“Not that I’m not glad to see you, Kaylee,” Jim says uncomfortably, “but you’re kind of right in front of my desk. You’ll be back soon, Neal?”

“In under an hour,” Neal promises. He raps his knuckles on Jim’s desk. “Don’t let any news happen without me, all right?”

“Never,” Jim says dryly, and he softens as he looks at Neal, and Neal - well, he tries not to read anything into that, because that would be absurd. “See you in an hour.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll bring him back in one piece,” Kaylee says, and her voice is bright but her eyes have a frankly concerning glint to them. Neal wonders if it might be worth trying to get Jim to refuse to let him go, but before he has the chance, Kaylee’s tugging him out the door, and Jim’s looking back at his desktop, and Neal resigns himself to coffee with Kaylee.

Well, no, resigns isn’t quite the right word. For one thing, she takes him to the closest coffee shop, not a Starbucks but somewhere with fresh-baked pound cake and an obscenely delicious vanilla latte. For another, he really does like Kaylee. She’s brilliant, she’s gorgeous, and she’s a little terrifying, which makes her exactly the type of woman Neal likes to befriend.

“So,” Kaylee says, stirring her coffee with that same glint in her eyes, “does your boyfriend normally keep you on that short of a leash?”

“Jim’s not my boyfriend,” Neal blurts out before he can stop himself, and then mutters,  _ “Shit.” _ He has just completely fried all of his plausible deniability.

Kaylee knows it, too, and her smile curls into something predatory. “Why, Neelamani, who said anything about Jim?”

“Shut up,” Neal mutters, refusing to blush. He takes a drink of his latte and hopes that he doesn’t look as sulky as he feels. “You did, didn’t you? I was inferring.”

“Good inference, but come on.” Kaylee leans in. “Are you hitting that?”

“No, Kaylee, Jesus.” Jim is his boss, and his friend, and a newly single friend at that, and also probably straight. Neal has gone through this list in his head dozens of times, doing his best to remind himself that Jim is completely off-limits. On the best days, it almost works.

A smile flits across her face. “But you want to be?”

Neal slurps at his latte instead of answering, hoping that Kaylee will get bored and go away. It doesn’t work, and her eyes narrow, and Neal can feel himself caving as he puts his cup down. “You can’t tell him.”

She snorts. “When would I have the time? Besides, it’s your business who you date, not mine.”

“Unless it’s you,” Neal feels compelled to point out.

Kaylee ignores that. “But you should tell him.”

“No,” Neal says tiredly.

And maybe there’s something in her coffee, or in the way he says it, or in how she’s known him for five years and probably figured out halfway through that time that he likes Jim, but something makes Kaylee’s face soften. “Yeah, okay,” she says, and for reasons Neal can’t explain, he feels terrible. He wishes he could talk to her about this, but some days it’s hard to even think to himself about it.

“What about you, are you seeing anyone?” he says, prodding gently, and he knows the answer by the way her face lights up. He smiles. Now, this he can talk about. (He can even avoid being bitter, mostly.)

..

There wasn’t a moment, per se, where Neal realized that he was in love with Jim. There was no glorious epiphany, no moment where he looked at Jim and thought  _ oh _ , no moment where he blinked and everything became clear.

If he had to describe it (and he’s spent a lot of time trying to explain it to himself, so he can describe it fairly well) he’d call it a sunrise. It seems inevitable, it seems undeniable, it seems vital in a way he can’t put into words.

It actually fades to the background, most of the time. He doesn’t always look up and think about the sun, and he doesn’t spend much time dwelling on how he feels. But there are days where he feels like he’s suffocating, like he can’t stop thinking about how he loves and loves and loves.

It’s not a bad thing, he figures. As long as he’s not actively sabotaging Jim’s relationships or being overly flirtatious, everything will be okay. He needs this status quo. He’s not sure what he’d do without it.

..

**THURSDAY**

Neal has a theory. It’s not a sound theory, but it’s all he has right now. His theory is as follows: if he walks fast and keeps his head down and sunglasses on, then nobody will notice his black eye.

“Neal, can you - Jesus _ fuck. _ ”

As it turns out, the theory is even less sound than he thought.

Neal squeezes his eyes shut, but he doesn’t turn away from Mac, who’s gaping in horror. “It’s not as bad as it looks, I swear.”

“What the hell did you do?” she demands, reaching for his face. He backpedals on instinct, and her glare deepens. “Neal.”

Neal lifts his hands to appease her. “Bruises hurt when you touch them, remember? I’m just trying to save myself more hurt.”

Mac folds her arms. “Those are the ugliest sunglasses I’ve ever seen, and they’re huge. And they still don’t cover that black eye. So start explaining.”

Neal sighs. “Okay, it’s… possible… that someone tried to mug me last night.”

“Mug you?” Mac repeats, voice rising to dangerous levels. Neal has to resist the urge to look around and make sure that nobody else is listening in. “Did he take anything?”

“No, I didn’t have anything worth taking,” Neal lies. Well, half-lies - the mugger hadn’t taken anything, but that was because when he’d reached for Neal’s laptop bag, Neal had panicked and kneed him in the crotch. The mugger flailed around, caught Neal in the eye with a stray fist, and staggered off into an alley, leaving Neal hyperventilating a bit in the middle of the sidewalk.

> Neal tries to keep his mugging a secret from people at large (ie Jim) but it doesn’t work. Jim absolutely loses his shit when he sees that Neal is hurt; Neal is annoyed until he realizes that this is just how Jim shows that he cares.

..

> In a flashback to Season One’s  _ Amen _ , Jim and Neal sit in the hospital waiting room. Neal asks why Jim came when he didn’t have to; Jim makes a bad joke about not wanting Neal to punch any more screens without him. Neal’s glad he’s there anyways.

..

**FRIDAY**

Neal brings the whiskey back on Friday night, more for his benefit than Jim’s, but he doesn’t mind that Jim benefits too.

Jim raises his eyebrows when he sees it. “Do you always drink whiskey on Fridays?”

> Jim and Neal spend their evening together commiserating about wedding dates. Jim says something about wishing he had a nice guy or girl to take, which leads to a discussion of fluid sexuality, and Neal thinks,  _ maybe, maybe. _

..

Okay, here’s the thing: there is a moment. It’s not a revelation or anything, but there’s a spark of interest, a second where he thinks,  _ I could love this man _ .

A man trips on some luggage and lands in a newsroom, and Neal watches him fight a system he doesn’t know because he loves the news so damn much. He watches Jim pull everyone to his side, magnetise them, start a revolution, and it’s fantastic, but it isn’t the moment.

The moment goes like this:

Neal talks, and Jim listens. Jim listens, and that changes the world.

..

**SATURDAY**

Maggie walks into Don and Sloan’s engagement party with Hallie Shea on her arm. Jim gapes a little bit, or at least Neal assumes he does, because he can’t find Jim anywhere. It seems ridiculous, it’s not like there’s infinite space in the banquet hall, but every time he goes where Jim reportedly was, Jim’s gone. It’s getting a little frustrating, but Neal’s not going to let it get to him. He’s here to have a good time.

And he does, actually. He catches up with Tess for the first time in ages (her girlfriend’s out of the hospital, and her boyfriend just passed the bar, and they finally found an apartment that fits all three of them) and gives Don and Sloan his gift (a gift card to a kitchen supply store, because he couldn’t decide if a salad spinner or a blender would better convey “I can’t believe you two are settling down and being domestic”) and even spends some time chatting with Maggie.

“I didn’t cheat on Jim,” Maggie says hastily, while telling the story of how she and Hallie got together. “I realized that Hallie and I were heading… where we were heading, and I knew it wouldn’t be fair for me to keep dating Jim when I wanted to be with Hallie. Not to any of the three of us.”

“I never thought you did,” Neal says, because she deserves to know that. He never had any doubt that Maggie wasn’t that kind of person.

Maggie sighs noisily, looking clearly relieved. “Thanks. I was worried Jim would think-”

“No, never,” Neal says hastily. It’s mostly true - if Jim hadn’t been heartbreak-woozy on Monday, the thought never would’ve crossed his mind. “I made sure of it.”

“Of course you did.” She gives him this wry smile, the kind that she didn’t have when Mac first started on News Night, the kind that means she’s getting too smart for her own good. Neal misses the days before she had it. “Let me guess, you were at his place last Friday, right?”

Neal pauses. This feels like a trap. “Yes?” he says hesitantly. “I don’t think he saw the split coming, he needed someone to be over.”

Maggie pats his arm in sympathy. “It takes him a long time to notice when someone has a crush on him, believe me. It’s better to just tell him.”

“To just - what?”

“He likes you, it’s worth a shot.”

“But it’s not - romance and friendship, those aren’t-” Neal’s spluttering, he can feel it, and he wishes he could stop, but there’s no way Maggie just said that. She’s laughing at him, he can feel it, and he settles for hopelessly moaning,  _ “Maggie. _ ”

“Are we giving him the talk?” Hallie says, brushing by Neal’s shoulder to loop an arm around Maggie’s waist. “Did you start without me?”

“Only a little bit, you didn’t miss much.”

“Hi, Hallie,” Neal says weakly. “What talk?”

Maggie and Hallie exchange a meaningful look that lasts several seconds too long. Hallie looks back at Neal, half sympathetic and half smug. “Neal, I only worked at ACN for five weeks and I could tell immediately that you’re head over heels for Jim.”

“Is this some kind of support group for people who need to get over Jim?” Neal figures there are worse directions that this could be going. It’s probably going one of those directions anyways, but he can dream.

“No, the two of us are already over Jim.” Hallie’s arm tightens around Maggie’s waist. “You, on the other hand, need to either get over him or get on him.”

“Get-” Neal turns just as a waiter wanders by with a tray and snags a glass of champagne. He needs it for this. “Hallie, you can’t say things like that.”

Hallie lifts her eyebrows. “Why, because they’re true? We’re trying to help you.”

“What Hallie’s trying to say,” Maggie says smoothly, “is that everyone who worked at ACN in the last five years can tell that you have a crush on Jim. Including us.”

Neal downs the champagne in one gulp.

“We weren’t mad,” Hallie adds. “It was cute, and you were nice to us.”

> Sloan and Mac encourage Neal to make a move; he still wavers until Will tells Neal to do something. Neal points out that Jim is technically his  _ boss _ , but he goes over to Jim. “Everyone’s betting that I wouldn’t ask you out,” he says, which is a lie, but he keeps on, “so this is me, asking you out, not because of a bet but because I like you and I can’t seem to stop making a fool out of myself.” Jim kisses him. All’s well that ends well.


End file.
